


necktie

by yuminpa



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Other, Suicide Attempt, Suicide Notes, i hope this is good enough, i really don't know what i'm doing, too much angst for the source, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22260175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuminpa/pseuds/yuminpa
Summary: the last attempt didn't work.and he was growing impatient.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 105





	necktie

**Author's Note:**

> ~~ QUICK PSA: this fic is inspired by 'The Things I Deserve' by storybook_rift! You guys should really check it out if you haven't, it's amazing!!~~
> 
> hello! hi!  
> i've never written something like this before,, so i hope it's alright!  
> also this is probably too too angst for the source but eeeehhhhhhhh  
> basically, i had an epiphany that you could hang yourself via a necktie,,,, and then i had .. ideas.  
> i researched and i think i'm ready?
> 
> sorry in advance to the conductor. :(
> 
> EDIT: thank you!!!! so much!!!! for 1000 hits!!!! <333

So far, nobody had noticed. 

The day had passed as normal. The boring schedule; the same as yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.  
Recording. And recording. And recording.  
The incessant yelling from the unnecessarily aggressive Conductor, who only wanted this movie to turn out well— and the occasional encouragement that came from DJ Grooves— to both his cast and his rival’s, surprisingly. Probably because Grooves knew that Conductor never gave them any sort of encouragement— and perhaps those Express Owls needed that little boost to get through the monotonous day of recording. 

But something was amiss.  
The studio had a creepy vibe to it. 

Why?

To put it simply, that night was the night Conductor knew he would die.  
Later that night, he would kill himself, using his necktie, which would hopefully be a good compromise as no ropes were readily available— and a metal beam tied to the wall somewhere in a storage room in the basement. 

The Conductor was going to kill himself. 

But nobody knew. Nobody. Not even Grooves, who was supposedly great at detecting this sort of stuff.  
Some owls had the suspicion that something was wrong with the Conductor, as he was more quiet than usual that day, and the littlest things set him off, even if they hadn't before.  
But sooner or later, they all brushed it off and told each other that ‘he was just tired’.

Sometimes, he heard them, and it only made him feel even worse.  
The voice at the back of his mind telling him that nobody cared, only got louder and louder as the day went on. 

He couldn't wait for the day to be over, so what he wanted could finally happen…

The end of the day came, eventually.  
The pitter-patter of rain echoed through the whole studio.  
Speaking about the studio: it was closed, but some owls and some penguins were lingering, to find some new props down in the basement for tomorrow, which was going to be, again, a full day of filming.  
Conductor sighed, and walked down to the basement, his gaze down at the stairs, his mind totally blank, in a trance-like state.  
“Can I talk to you for a moment?” He heard someone ask.  
Oh, look. Maybe someone cares about you. They might ask you what's going on.  
He looked up, his trance broken, and noticed that it was Grooves. He had an uncharacteristic worried look on his face, as if something was bothering him.  
Better not peck it up like you always do when someone tries to help you.  
Alas— Despite wanting to know what the moon penguin wanted to ask him, the Conductor scowled and shoved past Grooves. “Peck off.” The Conductor would've walked off, but Grooves stopped him in his tracks again, his worried expression intensifying.  
Someone cares. Weird.  
“Conductor, please—”  
“No! Go away!” He pushed the penguin away for the final time, and stormed off to where he wanted to go.  
Grooves stood there, watching him for a couple moments. Deep down, he knew something odd was going on.  
But the Conductor wouldn't tell him what.  
No need to force him though, he thought, he’ll be able to say something when he's ready.  
Grooves slowly walked away. 

The Conductor made it to his little storage room. He would usually spend his time down in this room, if he wanted to be alone or brainstorm. That's why he had a desk in the corner.  
But the concept of brainstorming anything had become null to him; empty bottles of booze lay on the desk, overshadowing the papers filled with draft scripts and brainstorms.  
He closed the door, sighed, and turned on the dim light.  
He hadn't replaced the bulb in ages– but that's not a problem, he won't need to soon.  
He stared at the metal beam hanging from the ceiling in the corner of the room, and for a reason he couldn't understand, he smiled.  
Finally, he thought. I will get what I deserve.

His first attempt didn't go well.  
It was disguised as a movie— Train Rush, it was called.  
He wasn't expecting to survive it, and yet, he did.  
“Curse that hatted lass,” he started mumbling to himself, taking off his tie. “If she hadn't of diffused the bomb, I would've gotten what I deserve ages ago. Painlessly, with me train! Around what I love!...” He smiled, put a hand to his head, and sighed.  
“I guess I deserve worse, though.”  
He sighed shakily and stared at the neatly folded note on the desk that he had written the night before.  
He winced at the details of said note: it was a suicide note— he knew that— but he'd rather not dwell on the contents.  
He looked back at the metal beam, holding his tie in his hands tightly, and taking a deep, shaky breath. 

Now that he had shaped his tie into a noose and tied it onto the metal beam— he didn't want to do this anymore.  
His fight or flight response activated, and his heart started to race.  
He was terrified now.  
But he had to do it.  
The voice in the back of his head was continuously chanting, NOW! NOW! NOW! YOU HAVE TO!

There was nothing else to listen to, but that… it calmed him down, slightly.  
He had gotten to the point of no return and couldn't reverse anything. And that was fine with him.  
He took one last glance at the suicide note he had written, skimming through it, checking if everything was okay, and if not, crossing it out completely or rewriting that part.  
It was rather long, but his scratchy, small handwriting made it look awfully short.  
He folded it back up again and set it on his desk again, his heart racing even more. 

He didn't want this heartbeat. And he was going to take it away from himself. 

A chair stood near the desk, and he dragged it from there to just above the makeshift noose.  
He started to tremble. But he couldn't stop now– an unknown force was taking over, as if someone had tied strings around his wrists. 

Before he knew it, he was standing on the chair, his shirt unbuttoned slightly at the collar, his head poking through the hole at the bottom of the necktie. 

This was happening. 

Right now. 

He looked down a little bit to get the feel of the tie pressing on his neck.  
Satisfying, but also terrifying at the same time. 

His heart was racing and he was trembling, but it was time to get this done. 

He double checked that this would work: every knot in the noose was tight and that it was tied securely around the metal beam. 

Everything was fine. Or, seemed like it. 

He stood there, on the chair. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and–

Jumped off. 

—

He gagged— not expecting the sudden, painful choking sensation— but then he heard a SNAP and his eyes widened.  
“Wh—”  
The metal beam snapped off, not being able to support the weight under it; and everything— the chair, the beam, Conductor— fell down with a loud THUD you could hear from outside the room.  
He kept his eyes open and his mouth was agape slightly, and then he yelled, “FOR PECK’S SAKE! AGAIN!?”

It was rather humourous for the express owls outside; they couldn't see what was going on in there, and believed Conductor just ruined something in there, and got incredibly angry at it. 

Some owls got a chuckle out of Conductor failing another suicide attempt. 

If only they knew. 

He curled up and started to sob uncontrollably, the necktie still tied around his neck.  
He didn't want to take it off. He couldn't— after all, the knot was too tight to be able to do it, he'd have to cut it off with scissors if he wanted that off.  
He curled up even more, covering his face and sobbing so, so much.  
“Why...why why why why why won't it work…”

All he wanted was a release. 

Whatever god he believed in— won't let him go. He was infuriated. Angry. Sad. Hopeless. 

He just wanted to go.  
He cried until he fell asleep, which surprisingly didn't take very long. 

“Conductor, darling? You're still in there, right? I still need to talk to you!”  
Grooves knocked on the door once, completely oblivious to what had just happened.  
He had most definitely heard the thud, and the characteristic swearing, but he thought nothing of it— maybe chuckled just a bit, like the oblivious express owls. 

He got no response, and he knocked on the door again, getting urgent. “I know you're in there. If you're not answering, then I'm coming in.” The smile and enthusiastic mood was wiped away from his face, as he opened the door and creeped into the room. 

His eyes widened at the sight.  
A chair and a metal beam strewn in the left corner of the room, both fallen over, with the Conductor laying slightly in front of the two, what looked like a noose to Grooves tied around his neck, and the pole.  
His heart plummeted. He knew exactly why the thud happened now.  
His heart was quickly resurrected though, and it started racing. 

Looking away, he noticed all the bottles of booze strewn on the desk, some alcohol spilled onto the desk. He slowly walked towards it; and noticed a small note, neatly folded.  
He knew what this was. He knew what the Conductor tried to do.  
Grooves slowly picked it up, and carefully unfolded it, dreading the contents on the inside of the note. 

—

He had reread and reread the note over and over, letting himself feel. Letting himself burst into tears after finishing it for the first time.  
Of course, the Conductor was his lifelong rival. But Grooves had always cared about him as a person. Behind that facade of aggression and impatience, there was a good man behind there. Somewhere. He just knew that.  
And reading this just made him feel hopeless.  
Finding out how horrible the Conductor felt— and probably still feels. After two failed suicide attempts, he's going to be extremely sad. Maybe angry.  
Reading how awful the Conductor thought he was, and finding out how he needed to die at some point, apparently being 'what he deserves’.

It wasn't what he deserved.  
The Conductor just needed help. He needed help. That was all.  
That.  
Is.  
All.  
He.  
Needs. 

Grooves let himself cry over the note for a little bit, and then neatly folded it back.  
Looking at the broken owl again, Grooves noticed that the noose was actually a necktie, his necktie; and it was stuck. Tied tightly to the metal beam and it was stuck around his neck. 

He wasn't going to get that off easily. 

Luckily, there was a pair of scissors on the desk, so he took those and made his way over. 

He sat down, cross legged in front of the Conductor.  
He knew he wasn't dead; which was an amazing thing.  
Grooves couldn't even emphasise how glad he was to know Conductor was still here.  
He silently separated the tie from the beam, and from around his neck, too.  
It was ruined now, but surely he wouldn't care. Nobody would care, would they?

Upon feeling someone’s presence, even during sleep, the Conductor woke up.  
He made some slight noises, and sat up, his eyesight blurry from tears. He immediately went to put his hands around his own neck, just to check if his tie was still there— but he was stopped almost immediately.  
“Please don't. It's not there. It shouldn’t be there.”  
He immediately wiped his tears upon hearing the voice and he looked up, frozen.  
To his surprise, Grooves was there, and Conductor could tell he had been crying. He tilted his head, pretending the suicide attempt didn't happen.  
“You...you've been crying, haven't you?”  
The two stayed silent for a moment, and then anger completely took over the moon penguin, and he started to yell, taking the Conductor by the shoulders and shaking him as he did.  
“OF COURSE! You thought nobody was going to care about you DYING!?”  
“Oh… you read the—”  
“YES, I READ IT! Of course I pecking read it! You thought nobody was going to care about this!? If you succeeded in committing pecking suicide, you thought nobody was going to care, because you're a bad person.”  
Grooves awaited a response, but the Conductor never gave one. His eyes welled with tears— but luckily, nobody could see them.  
“Yeah, I'm gonna be honest. You are a bad person. You don't have any empathy, you don't encourage your cast like you should and the only things you care about are your train, your alcohol and ending your pecking life, apparently. That's all you want to do. That's why you were way more quiet and irritable than usual, right? Because you were going to kill yourself later!? You just wanted the day to end SO YOU COULD PECKING K—...”

He had gotten too absorbed into his rant, to realise that the owl had broken down. Tears were streaming down his face and for once, he daren’t cover it up. He only nodded for a response.  
Upon seeing this, Grooves’ anger dissipated slightly, and he sighed deeply.  
“Look. Conductor, darling, I don't want you to go. None of us do. Look, even if they don't like you like you said in your note, they don't want you to die. I don't want you to die.”  
The Conductor quickly snapped. “Why!? I don't understand...you said it yerself– I'm a bad person! I don't deserve to—”  
“Stop.”  
The Conductor did stop. He looked down, and started to cry again.  
Grooves let go of his shoulders and stayed there for a moment, listening to the broken owl weep and apologise, over and over.  
“I'm so sorry,” he mumbled repeatedly, the mumbles getting more and more incoherent as time passed.  
All of a sudden, he was pulled into a giant hug. He tried to fight it off at first— Conductor never liked hugs— but he slowly settled into it, and he burst into tears once again, clinging onto Grooves for comfort.  
It hurt the moon penguin, both mentally and physically, but he didn't care.  
As long as Conductor got at least a little bit of help. Even if it wasn't professional, it was a little bit.  
“It's okay. You're okay. You are okay, you're right here, alright?”  
“...Mhm…”  
People can change, we all know that. You can change, if you wanted to. And I know you do. I know I'm your rival, and you're my rival. But I care about you. So, so much. I don't want you to die… so I'm not letting you.”  
“Let..let me die...please—”  
“Conductor, no. You're not leaving. Not like this. I'm gonna help you. You'll thank me later, when you realise you should've never gone through with any of this.”  
The hug continued and the two did nothing but squeeze tighter. 

“Not to beat around the bush, darling, but… what do we do about your...tie…?”  
The two let go of the hug — reluctantly — and Conductor looked down at his old purple tie, now cut into three pieces.  
He wiped away his tears, even though they still came; and picked them all up.  
“...I don't know…I'm not getting another purple one.”

“I like red.”

“No!”

The two never, ever forgot about that situation.  
But they were ever so grateful it brought them closer together.


End file.
